


Our Nation Turns its Lonely Eyes

by naevia_nadia



Series: Stars Hide Your Fires [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: As in both a scientific and spiritual approach to the Force, Competent Kylo Ren, Cool Engineering Concepts, Cool Science Concepts, Engineer Hux, First Order Backstory, First Order Culture, Interpretation on the Force, M/M, Outer Rim Culture, Soft existentialism, Space Aesthetics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:24:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naevia_nadia/pseuds/naevia_nadia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This isn't my responsibility.  I didn't ask for any of this."</p>
<p>"You think you're alone in that?  No.  But they are looking to you.  They need you to be a voice for them.  I can never be that, not like I am for the others." </p>
<p>"No.  You can't."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Return to Starkiller Base

**Author's Note:**

> WELCOME BACK TO THIS VERSE MY TREASURED READERS 
> 
> I am so, so, so happy that you're deciding to read the sequel to my first long fic! It's been such a rewarding experience, both in writing it but also getting to meet and talk to so many wonderful people! I appreciate all of you who left me kudos, comments or even just read the fic! 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy this sequel! It's all planned out and outlined (it's actually pinned on my corkboard haha gotta keep it in sight!), so the chapters should be quick! But they will be shorter than they were for the summer, so I apologize for that; still, that means you get more chapters! Hooray! 
> 
> This chapter doesn't have a lot of engineering in it, but I hope you see why I wrote the chapter the way I did :D everything is all ~*~relevant~*~ thematically so I hope you enjoy a major theme from One Day carry over into this fic! 
> 
> All I can say now is that I hope you enjoy the fic and stick around for later chapters! <3

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hux has been here before, on a different world. 

 

There, the world had been tearing itself apart. The icy ground was fracturing into deep chasms that exposed whatever remained of the molten core of the planet, what remained after a star had been forced inside. The wind blew harshly as the already weak geomagnetic field destabilized further, after its artificial containment in the form of a thermal oscillator had been miraculously destroyed, after the planet’s shields had miraculously been shut down. 

 

There, the world was screaming in its destruction. Never before had Hux heard such a momentous sound. The screams of ship afterburners or even Starkiller’s firing could never compare to this planet in its death keels. It was so loud that Hux could barely hear it at all after he left his shuttle, taken from the command center of his base, to the forest where Ren’s tracker had led him. The shuttle ramp descended, and yet Hux could hear nothing beyond the sound of his own quickening breath, over the sound of his pounding heart. Everything beyond that was silent. 

 

Hux’s first step into the icy slush, the snow having been melted from the increasing temperature of the planet’s stellar core, had shocked him in its intensity. It sank into the fabric of his synth leather boots, and weighed it down, so much so that pushing through the thick slush, barely above Hux’s ankle, was nearly impossible. 

 

Yet Hux pushed onwards in the forest. The officers and stormtroopers that had accompanied him had split off in perfect diagonals, as orderly as a formation of ships. Hux brought them along because didn’t know if his tracker was right. He didn’t know if Ren had lost it in his mission. Hux didn’t know what was happening at all; Ren hadn’t told him much about this specific mission, not like he had in the past. Hux had no idea what he will find when he finds Ren. All he knew was that he had to get to Ren, both because he was under orders but also because he _had_ to. 

 

Ren’s tracker was displayed on the screen as Hus pushed through the thick slush and into the trees that shook with the planet’s destabilization. It had blinked in a constant light, so much like a heartbeat, telling Hux that Ren was right in front of him. Yet when Hux looked up from the comm, out across the landscape, he couldn’t see Ren. All he saw was the white landscape that was entrenched with deep black chasms. Hux pressed onward; perhaps Ren was standing in front of a clump of trees? Maybe that’s why Hux couldn’t see him. 

 

At the first sight of blood, little droplets sprinkled in the snow like a red garnish, Hux grew worried. Perhaps that was from the traitor stormtrooper, the one who had caused all of this. Maybe it was from the scavenger, the one who helped him. Hux held onto this information and this feeling, kept it close, and pushed onward through the slush. Still, even as he repeated these observations, Hux felt fear wrap a hot hand around his stomach as the blood grew thicker and cut into the snow like the chasms cut through the planet’s crust. 

 

And then, in the distance, Hux saw a great expanse of black too small to be a chasm lying in the snow. At that sight, Hux realized he had been wrong at his assumption of the little red dots of blood, so dark in the snow. Hux ran to Ren, a sudden burst of manic energy giving him the strength to push through the rigidity of his frozen legs. When he dropped to his knees before Ren, Hux could barely feel the impact. 

 

Hux couldn’t tell if Ren was even alive as he stared down at his facial wound that was just beginning to congeal. A thick slush of blood surrounded his head, a deadly halo that strangely reminded Hux of Starkiller’s firing. Even more spilled from his belly. Droplets led to Ren’s collapse here, but were cut off from the chasm that split the forest apart. If Hux were to see across the chasm, he thought he would see Ren’s blood dripping from much farther, perhaps even from the base itself. Hux didn’t know how far Ren walked before collapsing here, after being wounded so grievously. He didn’t know anything about what transpired on Starkiller beyond his own knowledge: the shields were down, the Resistance was here, the base was destroying itself. That was all that Hux knew as he kneeled beside Ren.

 

With a shaky hand, Hux ripped his glove off and shoved two fingers under Ren’s jaw, blindingly searching for a pulse that had to be there. When he couldn’t find it, Hux leaned in further, so much so that he smelled the charred wound on Ren’s face, one that missed his neck to carve into his shoulder. Still, Hux couldn’t find a pulse, not with his fingers so cold and shaking uncontrollably with his panic. 

 

As a last result, Hux took his hand off Ren’s neck and slid it onto his stomach. The blood was thick here and stuck onto Hux’s exposed palm like a second skin. Hux lowered his ear to Ren’s mouth and hoped that Ren still breathed. If he wasn’t and yet his heart beat, Hux wouldn’t be able to save him. His medical expertise was next to none. 

 

Finally, after six horrifying seconds of nothing, Hux felt breath on his ear. His hand rose slightly, barely enough to even be noticeable, but Hux felt it. Ren was breathing. He was alive. 

 

Hux closed his eyes in thanks before taking a deep breath. Then, he lifted his hand from Ren’s stomach and his head from his face. Hux stood on stronger legs, though he could barely feel them, be it through the cold or sheer adrenaline. He bent down, slid his arms underneath Ren’s armpits and lifted his torso off the ground, just enough so that Hux could pull him back to the shuttle and get them off this dying planet. 

 

Ren has always been heavy, but the fabric of his clothing had soaked in so much slush and blood that he felt heavier. Hux grit his teeth and pulled harder. He didn’t know if pulling Ren like this would aggravate his injuries, but it was either this or being imploded. Hux had to do this. He had to be strong enough to get Ren to safety, to get him back aboard the Destroyer, before the planet killed them both. 

 

A tree collapsed beside them, the sound punching through the strange quiet of the planet’s destruction like a backfiring engine, and Hux ducked to shield Ren from the resulting debris. As he looked down Ren’s torso, Hux saw blood pulsing out his stomach wound. The flow wasn’t stopping. Ren would bleed out before Hux even got close to the shuttle. 

 

At this sight, despair was like a punch to Hux’s stomach. At that strong feeling, at the feeling of hopelessness and resignation that had never gripped him like this before, Hux lifted his head up and screamed a cry for help. Hux kept yelling, not even knowing what he was saying or if they were even words. He kept screaming even as he felt his throat tear and the muscles seize. The panic had taken hold of him, had gripped his neck and forced him into these fearful vocalizations like some kind of animal, and Hux couldn’t stop. 

 

Even as he screamed, Hux kept trying to pull Ren to the shuttle, but his arms were tiring. He was so cold, and Ren’s body was getting stuck in the thick slush, and the shuttle was so far away, and Hux kept screaming, calling out for anyone out there to help him. He was stumbling through the slush now, barely even moving for all of the effort he put in. 

 

And then, someone did come. They came from the forest, on either side of Hux. They were Hux’s officers, and even some of the stormtroopers, all of them fearful but one. Hux didn’t even recognize her, but he recognized her expression framed by blonde hair that had long-since come out of its uniform style. This Imperial, when they had been fleeing on their Destroyers from their home worlds, she had been one to fight for her survival. She had looked at people far stronger than Hux and taken what she needed from them to survive. And now, she was doing the same, yelling in a furious Slang at Hux until he began nodding his head, staring at her as she bared her teeth and shoved him aside. Hux stumbled back at the display of her blatant aggression. He let her slide her arms where his were and lift Ren with a withheld snarl. 

 

At this point, right now as the planet collapsed beside them, they weren’t superior and subordinate. Instead, it was just like any other fleeing from a star port: get each Imperial and get them to the Destroyer before whatever is hunting them gets there first. Ren may not be an Imperial, but to Hux he’s close enough. He has the pride, the suffering and the fight. For Hux, that’s enough. 

 

At this sight of Hux deferring to his subordinate, the rest of the group, officers first but stormtroopers quick to follow, moved in and shouldered Ren’s weight with their own strengths. Hux stood on Ren’s side, beside the officer who had taken his place in front of Ren’s head, and lifted Ren by the with two hands on his shoulders. Next to him was a stormtrooper who had one arm underneath Ren’s torso. The other hand was pressed down onto Ren’s still bleeding stomach wound. The white of the stormtrooper’s armor quickly became slick with red blood. Hux couldn’t say, didn’t have the knowledge, but even that bit of pressure had to help in some way. 

 

Ren’s head was the only part of him left unsupported. Hux untucked one of his arms from underneath Ren, and lifted his head gently. Hux couldn’t wipe the blood that was still sluggishly trailing from the cauterized wound, not with his other arm still supporting his weight, but with Ren’s head elevated, at least the blood no longer ran over his eyes and into his clumpy, tangled hair. He kept Ren’s head cradled in his palm as he walked back to the shuttle that must be so close now. 

 

Exhausted by his trek and with his throat still burning in agony, Hux, along with his crew and the stormtroopers, carried Ren to the shuttle. Their progress was slow, but it was faster than Hux could have done alone. Without their help, without the snarling words of that unknown officer to break him out of his fear, Hux thinks that he, along with Ren, would have perished on Starkiller with the rest of his base. 

 

Here, on this planet at the edge of a system far from any other, Hux wishes there was someone here to help him bring Ren back to safety. 

 

Yet there is no one else but Hux who can do that. 

 

The creature had disappeared as quickly as it appeared. Its great roar had been suddenly silenced at one blink of Hux’s eyes. Suddenly it was there. Suddenly it was not, and Hux was alone with Ren, who had not awoken even after the creature had vanished. 

 

Ren still isn’t awake, even as Hux jostles him with every yank across the floor of this cave. His head is lolled to the side, but it’s not like Hux can support him and drag him at the same time. It’s not like Ren, in his unconscious state, would care either way. It’s not like Ren would care that Hux draped his overcoat over him in some attempt to keep him warm. The only response Hux gets from Ren is his continued breathing. It’s deep and constant, like it is when Ren is asleep, but this isn’t like any sleep Hux has seen before. 

 

Maybe it’s the Force aspect of this cave? After the creature’s appearance, Hux accepted that this cave is not natural at all. He should have recognized it when he was able to step off the _Upsilon_ and breathe this planet’s air. It shouldn’t have been possible, a planet this far from its sun and so small. Hux can’t explain it with science; perhaps it can be explained by the Force. At least, that’s what Hux assumes, given what he knows. 

 

The creature’s words churn in Hux’s mind, flitting about quickly like little ships in the sky, but Hux can’t focus on those right now. The Force and its mysteries are Ren’s domain. Hux has no experience in the kind of mysticism and balance the creature was speaking of. 

 

Balance? One side of the universe and another? The mechanics of the Force? The _First Force User_? Hux has no experience with any of that philosophy. He had barely talked about it in the past with Ren, had marked it as a field he didn’t need to be interested in beyond the bare necessities. Ren was the same way; he had experience in the basics of engineering, just enough for his convoluted ways to fix ships and wayward doors, but the complex equations Hux needed for Starkiller? Ren had never asked. Even if he did, Hux would have never told him; Starkiller’s creation is restricted to the upper ranks: Hux and the admirals, with a few contracted engineers having a vague knowledge. Beyond that. Starkiller was a mystery to the Order and to the Republic, who could never have predicted that fiery red light to blast their worlds apart. 

 

This is all Hux can do: get Ren out of this forsaken cave and back to the _Upsilon_ shuttle. After that, Hux has no idea what he will do. They could run away from what’s happening, but Hux can’t see himself leaving the Order beyond his own forced exile. The admirals may have labeled him a traitor to the cause, but Hux, on a fundamental level, can’t leave them behind. 

 

On one harsh yank of Ren’s prone body, Hux stumbles on a rock behind him. He tries to catch himself with one outstretched hand, but Ren’s body proves too heavy to maneuver around, and Hux falls to the ground on his ass with an ungraceful thump. Ren falls atop of him. His head rests on Hux’s stomach with his head tilted unnaturally forward, his chin touching his chest. 

 

Hux sits there panting, his head tilted at the ceiling that sparkles with the unnatural pattern of bluish dots. Ren’s head moves with every heave of Hux’s breath, overly loud in the strange quiet of this cave, so similar to how it sounded on Starkiller. Still, Hux doesn’t feel that intense panic as he did on his base. He thinks he should, given what has been revealed to him, but Hux is so physically exhausted that the only emotion he feels is a determination to keep going, to keep pushing on until the _Upsilon_ is in sight. The ship is no Star Destroyer, but it has kept he and Ren safe for a while now. It will have to be enough. 

 

There’s sweat collecting itself in the rigid collar of Hux’s uniform. Hux’s hair hangs sweat drenched on his forehead. With every breath, Hux can feel his belt buckle press uncomfortably into his stomach. 

 

Hux can’t go on like this. His bulky uniform only acts as a weight keeping his minimal strength down. He needs to keep his weight down if he is to drag Ren out of here. 

 

Gently, Hux moves his body out from underneath Ren’s head. He cradles Ren’s head in his palm before slowly lowering it to the ground. Ren’s eyes don’t open at this motion. His breath remains heavy. Ren’s mouth is barely open, just enough so that he can keep breathing. At his hip is his lightsaber, which Hux had found tossed to the side in the creature’s chambers. 

 

Hux stands and strips out of his uniform top. He first unclips his belt and tosses it to the side; it’s not like he needs to keep up appearances now, so far from his fellow Imperials as he is. Next is the tunic, which he quickly takes off and rudimentarily folds it. Hux sets the folded bundle on Ren’s lap. He does the same with his belt after folding it into something more compact. Hopefully, after Hux lifts Ren, the bundle won’t topple off onto the cave floor. Hux wouldn’t want to stop and keep picking it up, just for it to fall off again. 

 

Around him, the lights from the blue dots on the walls and ceiling cast an ethereal glow on Ren. His pale face is tinged lightly blue, like Ryoida’s clear blue sky on days when the winds weren’t as wild. Hux thinks that if he looked at himself he would be tinted blue as well. 

 

Hux stands there for quite a while, his hands on his hips and his head tilted back to the ceiling. A thin stream of sweat trickles out of his hairline to run uncomfortably down his face. Hux swipes his hair back with one hand. It mostly sticks to his head in a way reminiscent of his appearance on the _Finalizer_ , but a few strands of hair break free to hang over his forehead. Hux leaves them there; that’s the best he can do in this situation. 

 

After catching his breath, Hux goes back to his original position in front of Ren. He scoops Ren up with his arms tucked under Ren’s armpits. Already, Hux’s back aches with the return to this uncomfortable position. 

 

Hux begins his slow walk backwards once more. He can’t say how much farther he has to go. Hux can’t say when exactly he saw the first weapons abandoned on the ground after their holders had been consumed by this creature that had spared he and Ren. Hux saw the strange black shape, the one with the golden circle implanted on one of its sides, sometime ago, but he can’t remember when. All Hux knows is that until he feels the _Upsilon_ ramp underneath his feet, he can’t stop. 

 

A long while passes until Hux’s arms begin to shake once again. He can’t even feel pain in them anymore, nor in his back. Instead, with his eyes faced forward towards the creature’s chambers, Hux tugs Ren’s body back with every arrythmic exhale from his own chest. Hux has long since resorted to panting open-mouthed. His mouth feels so dry, but Hux has no water with him. Neither he nor Ren had the knowledge that they would need to drink or eat while in this cave. Hux hasn’t seen anything organic in this cave either, nothing that could be eaten. There’s only rock and broken weapons left behind by earlier visitors. 

 

Soon, every yank of Ren’s increasingly heavy body takes its toll on Hux’s rapidly depleting strength. Every subsequent pull from Hux’s shaking arms covers a shorter amount of ground than before, until Hux is just ineffectively tugging at Ren’s body. 

 

In his frustration, at one last tug of Ren’s body, Hux turns his head to the other side of the cave, where the entrance is nowhere in sight, and tries to scream his fury, but all that comes out is a choked and hoarse cry. Hux is too parched to even make a sound as basic as a scream. He’s too weak to even vocalize like an animal. 

 

This realization makes Hux drop Ren to the ground with a thump. He stumbles fully upward, his back protesting the motion with a sharp and fiery stab of pain to his spine, and even that reminder makes Hux throw his head in a snarl, shaking his hair out of its slicked back position on his head. His hands ball into fists. Hux can feel the point of his nails dig into his palms through the synth leather gloves. 

 

At this moment, Hux can’t think beyond his own bodily pains. He can’t plan ahead to what he and Ren will do as a result of this creature’s words. Hux can barely hold onto any semblance of control right now. With Ren still unconscious, there’s no one else for Hux to turn to in this moment of instability. This isn’t like how he was in the _Finalizer’s_ engine rooms; there, he had been too sleep-deprived to recognize his emotions for what they were. Now, though, it is entirely different. Hux has the energy within to keep going, but his body won’t cooperate. That is why he paces now, even though his legs shake and tears prick at his eyes, even though he is so thirsty that his pants of air scratch at his throat. 

 

Suddenly, Ren moans so softly that Hux can barely hear him. Hux does though and quickly turns his head to Ren’s barely moving body with unblinking eyes. He barely breathes as he walks back to Ren and kneels beside him. Hux puts one shaking hand over Ren’s face, but doesn’t touch him. Ren’s furrowed expression, a sudden change from the peacefulness of before, makes Hux pause and observe with his head tilted to the side. 

 

Just as quickly as Ren begins, he stops. His expression smooths out once more, and Hux is left there with his hand hovering over Ren’s head, kneeling in this Force cave that has given both of them nothing but pain and suffering. 

 

Now that he’s kneeling on the floor beside Ren, Hux is so, so tired. He needs to get Ren to the shuttle, back to the _Upsilon_ so they can fly far from here. Get the Imperial, get them to the Destroyer, get them home. Ren is no Imperial, but this is how fleeing has always been, back in the past when Hux was aboard the _Defiance_.

 

But who is chasing them now? Snoke. The admirals. The Resistance, when they hear that the creature directs them to their two new Force users. Ren’s knights must be on the hunt, too, but Hux knows little about their comings and goings, if Ren is even truly lord and master over them. Hux would ask, but Ren can’t answer in his state. They’re dangerous, either way.

 

Right now, though, there is no one in this cave to give chase to Hux and Ren. The creature has disappeared back into its own world, unable to remain without being a parasite on Ren or any other Force user. Snoke won’t come up behind Hux as he rests. No one will. 

 

No one will. That thought makes Hux shrink into himself. 

 

Hux has never been alone like this before. Before, even as he was hated by almost everyone, he had the _Defiance_ to return to. If he truly needed help, he could call out in Slang, and any Imperial close to his age would come running. They may have only helped for the promise of a food reward, but they still came when Hux needed them. 

 

Ren’s arm lies palm up on the floor of the cave. Hux takes hold of it with one tentative hand and moves it to the side, just enough so that he can slide in between Ren’s arm and body. Hux maneuvers himself in between and brings Ren’s arm over his body to rest on his side. Ren’s hand rests over Hux’s stomach. Hux takes hold of it with one hand. The other hand remains curled into Hux’s chest. Then, Hux tucks his legs over Ren’s thigh, so his booted feet rest in between Ren’s legs. Hux’s coat is still draped over Ren’s body in a way Hux hopes is keeping him warm. His bundle of his tunic and belt remains on his lap. 

 

Hux’s head is resting where Ren’s arm meets his shoulder, right above his pecs and tucked into the fabric of his cowl. Ren’s hair barely tickles at Hux’s face. Here, Ren smells earthy, like he does after a long workout. Familiar, in that it was one of the few scents on the _Finalizer_ that wasn’t clinical. With a deep sigh, Hux settles into this position. He can already feel his muscles relaxing from their dull burn into something that somewhat resembles relief. 

 

Just as Hux is approaching sleep, his stomach groans in hunger that Hux has subconsciously been suppressing. The sound and feeling makes Hux whimper and pull Ren’s hand closer into his stomach, like the force of it could squish Hux’s hunger into something small and unnoticeable. It’s not like Hux can just go and get food; any food they have is on the _Upsilon_ , and Hux is too tired and weak to get Ren all the way there on his own. 

 

And Hux won’t leave him. Ren’s all that he has left, after his exile from his ship, after his exile from Ryoida. The only person left for Hux is unconscious next to him, and Hux doesn’t know when he’ll wake. But he can’t leave him. 

 

Hux crunches his body up, bringing his head down Ren’s body to rest on his pecs. He squeezes his eyes closed and focuses on sleep, not on the thoughts of food that tantalizingly swim through his mind. Now that Hux has moved down Ren’s chest, he can hear Ren’s constant heartbeat. Hux focuses on this, and not the groaning of his stomach, as he makes his way toward a dreamless sleep, uninterrupted by any creature given Hux’s sheer physical and emotional exhaustion. Hux’s hand loosens from its tight grip on Ren’s fingers, and it falls to the ground. Ren doesn’t move to take it back; he only continues his slow, methodical breathing that soothes Hux to sleep. 

 

Above them, the blue stars glitter in their patterns, casting their light on the two people resting below them, one lying on the ground in an unnatural position with his head tilted to the side in relaxed unconsciousness. The other, smaller one is tucked into his side. His red hair, untouched by the blue light from the shimmering stars above them, clashes strongly with the black robes of his partner, giving the dark expanse of fabric a touch of fiery color.


	2. Unfamiliar Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After leaving the mysterious planet in the strange star system, Hux decides who he will go to next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS IS LATE 
> 
> Honestly my September was super rough, and I spent a lot of my allotted ~*~fic time~*~ outlining this mess, so sorry this update is late! I hope it's well worth the wait though!! <3
> 
> Thank you to all who read, hit kudos and left comments! They are lovely, and I appreciate all of you!! 
> 
> Enjoy chapter 2, where shit actually happens! It's always good when we get to that part of the story ;)

\-----------------------------------------------

 

At the first sight of light that isn’t the twinkling blue dots overhead, Hux finds within himself an extra burst of strength he thought he couldn’t have. Yet there it is, as he heaves in breath and pulls Ren so aggressively across the rocky ground of the cave that surely his shoulders must be dislocated. 

 

Hux’s legs shake where they stand. His arms are too, trembling where they held up Ren’s considerable dead weight in the air. The pain in his back has scaled down into one point, but increased in severity so it feels like a knife is permanently lodged into Hux’s spine. Yet when Hux broke into the light over this rocky planet, outside of the strange blue light of the cave’s false stars, that pain vanished to be replaced by an expansive force within Hux’s chest. It felt like his entire body was tingling, in a way that let him know that he had reached what he thought he could do and was yet continuing. 

 

Waking up had been painfully disorienting. Painful given the fact that Hux had slept on the ground with already existing pains. Disorienting because for a split second, Hux thought he were aboard the _Finalizer_ or perhaps on Ryoida, asleep beneath his X-wing’s wings. But once Hux blinked himself awake and saw the blue lights around him and Ren’s unchanged state, he knew where he was and what he had just come from. What he had heard and yet still couldn’t possibly understand, not with his own experiences. Hux could never know the Force like Ren does. It wasn’t possible, with who Hux was. 

 

Finally, after what seems like an eternity of walking and dragging Ren’s unconscious form behind him, Hux emerges from the cave, somehow both natural and manmade, and back into the processional of ships that line either side of him. Silent watchers, looking upon Hux as he struggles to drag Ren out from the cave. Hux glances at one of the ships from the corner of his eye. The ship could have landed here yesterday or years ago. Hux can’t say, not with the pristine condition of every ship in line with each other. The sight makes him shiver; he turns his head back to the _Upsilon_ he can see in the distance. Her great black wings are tucked in close beside her body and reach upwards to the stars that float above them in perfect stillness. No atmosphere to disturb them here, though Hux still breathes. 

 

Never before has Hux felt like someone was watching him like this. On _Defiance_ , it was like that, of course, but never so pervasive. If one knew the Destroyer well, they could find hiding places aboard her. Hux knew _Defiance_ very well. He had to; he needed multiple places to hide food, in case someone found his store before he could get to it. Hux also needed somewhere to eat, if he wasn’t to face the unblinking stares from other hungry children. 

 

Hux had two places he frequented aboard _Defiance_ : a room sequestered in between two classrooms, barely noticeable besides a thin crease in the wall that, if one dug their fingernails into it, could be pried open. The other was the _Defiance’s_ great engines room, on an access platform suspended in front of the three ion-hyperdrive engines that could barely keep the Destroyer in hyperspace. That is where Hux returned to when the _Finalizer_ had failed, in a similar but much more dramatic fashion than when _Defiance’s_ engines had their hiccups. Perhaps that was why Hux returned there to eat once he realized everything had fallen apart. 

 

But right now, all Hux needs to do is get Ren to the _Upsilon_ , take off and get out of this system and fly somewhere else. He doesn’t know where they need to go, but he can figure it out later. Right now, get to the _Upsilon_. That’s it. That’s all he needs to do, right now. 

 

Each ship Hux passes incites more skittish curiosity, as Hux wants to go closer to the ships and explore what they carry within their bodies. Yet at the same way he shies away, wary of how preserved they are on this planet. Skittish because of what he knows now, from that Force creature that appeared out of nowhere to talk to Hux, specifically, and not Ren. And for what reason? 

 

The _Upsilon_ is getting closer. So close that Hux is beginning to get tired again, though it feels like no time has passed since he woke up, stretched his aching muscles and pissed with the ever-increasing fear that at the defilement of its cave, the Force creature would emerge to slash or bite through Hux’s body. Hux had then quickly collected his clothing atop Ren again before dragging him as fast he could. 

 

By now, the dryness of Hux’s mouth and the emptiness of his stomach serve as constant sources for irritation. Hux has gone without food a lot longer than this; surely his body should remember this and quiet down? Hux doesn’t understand human biology enough to know if that would happen. He does know that the constant rumbling growls from his stomach, along with the rasp of his dry breath, aren’t necessary. All Hux needs to do is get to the _Upsilon_. Other bodily needs can come later, when Hux can afford to think about them. 

 

Finally, just as Hux is thinking he might need to take a longer break than usual and set Ren down on the ground, Hux bumps into one of the _Upsilon’s_ wings. He jumps at the sudden feeling, not expecting it at all given that he was dragging Ren backwards, and quickly turns to see what has just touched him. When Hux sees that it’s the _Upsilon_ , he relaxes with a sigh, licking his lips to try and get some moisture onto them. It doesn’t work at all; it only makes him more aware of his thirst.

 

Hux drops Ren onto the ground, barely remembering to cradle his head on the way down so he isn’t concussed. His hair already feels greasy; it was always like that. It got greasy so easily. Ren had always hated that, especially when he came back from long away missions where he hadn’t seen a sonic or shower for weeks. Hux noticed that, for a while, Ren would conveniently avoid taking his helmet off in front of Hux when he first returned. It would always be later that day or at night when Hux could see Ren unmasked. Once Hux had made the connection, it had been incredibly difficult not to snort at Ren’s sly attempts to keep his face hidden. After Ren had noticed Hux’s amusement on his behalf, he had retaliated by dramatically throwing off his helmet whenever he got back, exposing Hux to the full extent of his stench. 

 

Like Hux hasn’t smelled worse. Sometimes he thinks that Ren thinks him a lot more snobbish that he actually is, like he’s one of the True Imperials who lived in the Empire’s decadence. He humored Ren though, let him shove his sweaty hair against his face and scrunched his nose in supposed distaste. Ren always enjoyed those reactions. 

 

Right now, Hux feels and probably looks worse than Ren ever did when he felt like it was imperative that he kept himself hidden until he looked presentable. Being presentable was always important, but right now the only things that can see Hux are the _Upsilon_ , the ships he just passed and whatever creatures exist in the unseen ether of the universe. Hux isn’t aboard the _Finalizer_ , not in command of Starkiller anymore. It doesn’t matter what he looks like. 

 

Hux traces his still gloved hand on the _Upsilon’s_ surface, searching for the button that will externally descend the ramp. He finds it almost by memory; most ships had their external opening mechanisms in the same area. The _Upsilon_ , as sophisticated as she is, is no different from the rest. 

 

The ramp mechanism initializes with a hiss of pressurizing air, reminding Hux again of the strange atmosphere of this planet. It has to exist if Hux is still alive, yet it doesn’t exist enough to distort the starlight up above? Hux can’t think of any example of that happening before, though his experience with planet charting is minimal. His experience lies with ion-hyperdrive engines and its derivatives. Hux may have had to take classes in the Academy on physics concepts like this, but he can barely remember what he learned that long ago. It’s like his experience with Imperial Code; he learned it in school like all Imperials did, but he never had the need to use it, although he was very good at it. Most of Hux’s generation was very good with code. Hux thinks it’s due to Imperial Slang; a second language, one slung together by children exposed to far too many languages at once, has to be beneficial to code. 

 

The ramp hits the ground with a small thump. Hux goes back to Ren, slips his arms under his shoulders and lifts him off the ground. Ren’s legs drag behind him and his head lolls forward as Hux drags him up the _Upsilon’s_ ramp. The wings bracket Hux on both sides. 

 

Hux expected pulling Ren up an incline to be more challenging; that’s what physics dictates. Still, pulling Ren up the slight incline of the ramp is almost impossible on Hux’s already weak body. His arms shake so much that it jostles Ren, makes his head loll from one side to the other. Hux grits his teeth and pulls harder, snarling lowly with the force of it until he makes it up and the ramp and into the _Upsilon’s_ cabin. Once Ren’s legs cross the boundary of the ramp, Hux lowers him to the ground. His back aches with the force of it. 

 

Once Ren is fully on the ground, Hux straightens with a deep sigh, tilting his head up to stretch his tense neck. Then, as his legs are still shaking with the effort to support his weight, Hux sits on the floor with his feet planted on the floor in front of him. He stares over his knees at where he just came from, at the long expanse of rock that leads to the mouth of the cave. Hux can’t see beyond the mouth of the cave. He can’t even see where the false blue stars twinkle in their random patterns, though he knows they are there in the cave. Along with another being he could have never expected. 

 

Hux feels a dull pang in his stomach at the thought of that creature. It’s not hunger, but fear, ordering Hux to get off this planet and fly somewhere safe aboard this ship.

 

With effort, Hux pushes himself up to stand. He walks over Ren’s body, still lying on the floor like he decided to fall asleep there, and wraps his gloved hand over the exit lever and pushes it up. The ramp raises with another accompanying hiss as the pistons pull the mass upwards and back into the ship. The ship pressurizes as Hux walks across the cabin and into the cockpit. He almost sits down in the copilot’s seat before he remembers that Ren couldn’t pilot in his state. Hux awkwardly moves over the throttles in between the seats to get to the pilot’s seat. 

 

Hux has never flown the _Upsilon_ alone before. In fact, the first time he flew the machine was with Ren, when they left the _Finalizer_ to fly to Ryoida. The _Upsilon_ shuttle is a new derivation on an old design, though her engines are completely new. Breakthroughs in dark matter enabled these twin dark matter engines, the size of a TIE fighter’s ion engines but so much more powerful. What Hux knows beyond that is minimal; due to his involvement with Starkiller, his attentions weren’t towards the latest in engine development. Instead, they were directed towards devising a way to contain a star within a planet without vaporizing the planet itself. An arduous task, yet the payoff was worth it, Hux thinks. 

 

While consulting the takeoff procedures at every step, Hux manages to get the ship into the air, firing its vertical thrusters first before switching over to vertical and horizontal control with a click of the rotary switch. Now, all the ship needs are minor corrections from its steering thrusters. 

 

The ship barely shakes as it breaks atmosphere. Hux doesn’t know if this is because of the ship’s design or the planet’s strange atmosphere. He honestly doesn’t want to think about that anymore, though his mind is less cooperative. It churns with theories, some based in actual fact and others just speculation, on why this planet didn’t behave like a normal planet on the edge of its star’s gravitational pull. 

 

Hux’s hands shake as they lift the yoke up and tilt the ship into an angle that’ll take it out of the planet’s gravitational pull, but one shallow enough so Ren doesn’t slide down the cabin of the ship. At any other time, Hux would have thought the mental image hilarious. Now, though, he is entirely serious. 

 

Hux notices that by instinct, he had calculated the angle off of what he knows an X-wing needs, though he can’t say as to why he thought of an X-wing before a TIE fighter or even an Imperial fighter. The _Upsilon_ and X-wing are incredibly different in design, yet atmospheric escape trajectory is usually pretty similar for ships. It’s the velocity needed that changes; Hux can hear the dark matter engines groan as they propel the _Upsilon’s_ mass through the atmosphere of the planet. 

 

Once the ship is out of the planet’s gravity, Hux pulls the yoke back to its initial position. In front of him is the far expanse of space. In the distance, Hux can see stars suspended as bright lights. They don’t shimmer; without atmospheric interference, there’s nothing to bend their light and make the waves dance. 

 

Hux turns the ship around with a small pull on its yoke. The steering thrusters follow accordingly and propel the ship through the vacuum. Their design was a breakthrough in space flight, though it was made thousands of years ago. A small, almost obvious change was made: to mount the steering thrusters on a spherical base. It negates the need for individual thrusters for the three axes of rotation: pitch, yaw and roll. It also reduces fuel intake, something Hux can only be grateful for. 

 

Almost as an aside, Hux reminds himself to check the fuel levels of those thrusters; without them, attitude adjustment in atmo is seriously impaired while in vacuum it makes steering impossible if the gaseous fuel runs out. 

 

Now that the ship is turned away from the center of the system, relative to the position of its white dwarf star, the cockpit viewport shows the two planets locked in binary orbit around each other. So similar in size, yet Hux can see the one on his left, relative to himself, is smaller. Just by a small amount, but still noticeable. 

 

But this system is strange. Strange in that Hux can see the two planets in the viewport, illuminated by some source of light he cannot see, beyond the null-light from the white dwarf that is this system’s star. A white dwarf that is close to complete degeneration into a black dwarf, something Hux only thought was theoretical. 

 

Strange because Hux can’t justify why this is so, not with any physics he knows of; he can only say that it’s true because he can see. He can see the evidence in front of him. The universe, here, shouldn’t be possible. A star such as this shouldn’t be dying like this in this galaxy. The galaxy isn’t old enough, by what rough estimate Hux remembers from the Academy. The universe, yes, but the galaxy…no. 

 

The pre-flight manual slides out of Hux’s grip to land on the floor. Hux doesn’t notice it.

 

It shouldn’t be possible. 

 

Finally, the creature’s words sink into Hux’s mind fully. It shouldn’t be possible. 

 

“None of this should be,” Hux mutters to himself, says to the two planets in the viewport. His voice is so hoarse from his thirst. He had almost forgotten about it, but it throbs in his throat with an intensity that came from speaking. 

 

Hux tears his gaze away from the planets, the ones he can see even though there is little light in this star system, and towards the _Upsilon’s_ controls. By memory, he inputs a random coordinate system the _Defiance_ had visited on its way to the Unknown Regions. Hux has to translate the numbers in his head from Slang to Standard, an old skill like Imperial Code or his random knowledge from the Academy, but it barely takes any time to make the translations. 

 

Before engaging the hyperdrive, Hux almost calls out a countdown before remembering that Ren isn’t sitting next to him in the copilot seat and is rather unconscious on the cabin floor behind him. Hux lingers at the empty seat for a while before turning his gaze away from the black synth leather and back to the viewport.  
Hux wraps a hand over the double throttle levers. He has to stretch his fingers to catch both throttles, but he manages. Silently, with no fanfare, he pushes the throttles down.

 

Immediately, the planets in front of him begin to vibrate. The surrounding stars do as well as the ship prepares to slide into its artificial wormhole and into the in between. 

 

Silently, the ship makes the jump. The stars lengthen and thin into streaks as space-time is warped. Neither the ship nor Hux feel any force from the slide into light speed. When the hyperdrive components of engines do work, they work very well. Otherwise, a ship can be torn apart. The _Finalizer_ only survived it because she was so large and was strengthened via her thick durasteel frame. 

 

The star streaks enrapture Hux for a short time, as they always do. He thinks back to him time aboard the _Finalizer_ , when Rhodona first told him that his ship was going to fail him. The creature spoke of beginnings in the dreams Hux thinks have to be visions. Ren would agree with him, if he had spoken to him about them, if he had even remembered the creature’s words. 

 

Now Hux knows more. Yet still Ren sleeps on. Hux can’t explain this either, just like he can’t explain why the planets are illuminated by a dying star’s light.  
Hux sighs very deeply at the star streaks. The exhale scraps at his throat, reminding him of his thirst. He can barely feel his hunger anymore, though Hux knows it has to be there. There’s dirt and sweat caked onto his sore body. His hair has to be wreck. 

 

With a grunt, Hux pushes himself out of the pilot’s chair. His legs still feel so shaky, and he almost falls when he walks out of the cockpit. Hux keeps one hand on the cockpit’s wall, in between the control panels nestled there, to aid him as he exits. 

 

Upon leaving, Hux sees that Ren still hasn’t woken up, even after they left the system. He still lies on his back to the side, where Hux had sat some nights before, thinking that he was going to lose Ren too. He had been so weak then, letting himself fall back so far. Hux knew Ryoida would do that to him, yet still he went willing into that terribly pathetic display. It wasn’t needed or asked for, and if Hux had spent even a brief amount of time thinking it over, that display never would have happened. 

 

Still. It happened, and now Hux has to deal with the fact that he dumped his problems on Ren who is the definition of unstable right now. Hux should have seen how quickly he jumped from angry despair at being abandoned to joy at being given a “mission” again. He didn’t see it in the _Finalizer’s_ engine rooms. He didn’t see it after Ren pulled him into the storage closet and told him what he had felt. 

 

Snoke would have never been so quick to forgive. Not after Ren hadn’t done anything to win his attention and praise back. Both Ren and Hux had been blind in that. 

 

Hux wants to kick himself for it, but he’s too tired to lift his leg beyond the bare minimum it takes to shuffle himself across the floor. 

 

“You’ll just…stay there, for a bit,” Hux mutters as he passes Ren. “I’ll be right back.”

 

It takes Hux a long time to get his body tended to. Hux starts by taking off the rest of his uniform, now completely covered in sweat and dirt from that planet, leaving him in his underwear. His dog tags clink on his chest like an afterthought. 

 

Hux then goes to the fresher and turns on the sink. He drinks water straight from the faucet, indiscriminately ducking his hair into the water to rinse the grime from it. Hux leaves the faucet on for a long time, just to enjoy the feeling of water reaching his dry skin. Hux shuts it off once he remembers that the water levels aboard have to be low by now. He reminds himself to check the levels after tending to his body and Ren. 

 

Food is Hux’s next mission. He goes to Ren’s bag first; judging by the apples they ate on the way to Ryoida, Ren has to have brought more fresh food. Hux just brought whatever nonperishables he could cram into the hole in his quarters. It was meant for a secret weapon, instead of a food store, but Hux can’t think of anyone stupid enough to attack him aboard his ship. Competition among the ranks is one thing, but direct sabotage of one’s superior officer? Not even Hux’s generation was savage enough to do that, once they left the Academy. 

 

Hux is in luck. Ren brought along more fruit, some Hux recognized but others that he didn’t. He grabs a fuzzy brown fruit and takes a bite. Hux remembers that the skin is traditionally removed before eating the fruit, but he doesn’t have the patience to find his smaller knife and then carve the fruit. The skin just has a strange, fuzzy texture. It won’t kill him. 

 

The juices run down Hux’s cracked lips. He licks at them before taking another bite, leaving it in his mouth as he looks for his personal comm. There has to have been an update from Mitaka, if he’s still alive and well. Hux hopes that he is; he doesn’t need yet another thing to be guilty about. He’s still dutifully repressing what must have happened on Ryoida after he fled with Ren. Hopefully Alekta is a better liar than Hux ever was, if she is to survive. 

 

Hux finds the comm tossed on the ground near his Ryoida clothes, where he tossed them before getting into the sonic some nights ago, when he and Ren still thought they were going to see Snoke. The clothes are still dusted red; Hux reminds himself to wash them. He doesn’t know if the _Upsilon_ has a washer, but it has to if it’s the shuttle for the Knights. Hux has borne witness to the destruction Ren’s clothing has witnessed through his battles. 

 

Hux takes the fruit from his mouth and leaves the bedroom, not before snagging a pillow from the bed. Water from his hair runs down his neck. It makes Hux shiver. 

 

His body sufficiently taken care of, Hux situates himself next to Ren. The rest of Hux’s uniform is still on top of him. Hux grabs his overcoat and throws it over his shoulders. He sweeps the rest of the clothing aside. The buckle from his belt clanks against the cabin’s metal floor. Quickly, Hux eats the rest of the fruit, savoring its sweetness with every quick bite.

 

Once he’s finished eating, Hux gently lifts Ren’s head up before sliding the pillow underneath it. He’s still too tired to drag Ren even to the bedroom. Ren will just have to deal with it. If Ren were to wake up on the floor though, Hux can imagine the irate expression on his expressive face. The thought makes him sniff in humor. He runs a hand down Ren’s face, over his lips that aren’t even dry. That realization makes Hux tilt his head to the side in puzzlement.

 

Ren hasn’t had any water since he was last aboard the _Upsilon_. Yet his face is still soft and his lips moist. 

 

It isn’t the strangest thing to happen today. Perhaps being Force-sensitive means that even passed out, you can be confident that it won’t let you have dry skin or have pissed yourself. It seems odd that the Force would think of bodily reactions like that, but maybe it’s Ren himself who has that skill. Hux can see Ren studying the Force just to prevent himself from taking inconvenient piss breaks. 

 

For some reason, that thought makes Hux’s shoulders shake underneath his overcoat. That shaking turns into complete cackling as Hux tilts his head back and laughs up at the _Upsilon_ ceiling. His eyes are scrunched so tightly that tears are squeezed out of them and run down Hux’s face to join the juice from the fruit still sticky on his face. Hux curls his hands close to his chest as he continues his laughter. The comm’s edges push into Hux’s palm with a dull accompaniment of pain that Hux can barely feel in his mirth. His stomach bounces with the effort of it, reminding Hux of the soreness still present in his body. 

 

As quickly as it starts, Hux’s laughter degenerates into silent mirth, his teeth bared at the ceiling in an imitation of a grin.

 

“We are so _fucked_ , Ren,” Hux says to the ceiling. This sentence makes Hux snicker more, as if there’s something funny in the fact that they’re on the run from literally everyone in the galaxy and the only people who could be their salvation are their enemies. Not very good odds, not at all for Hux and Ren. 

 

Hux sighs at the ceiling, his eyes still closed, before he swipes a hand over his wet face and into his wet hair. Hux slicks it back in an imitation of his usual style, the one it would be in aboard the _Finalizer_ and on Starkiller.

 

One step at a time. Find the problem. Do your job and then fix it. That’s what Hux has to do here, just like with any other problem he’s faced. 

 

Hux sure as hell knows what the problem is. They can’t go back to the _Finalizer_ or even the Order. But perhaps Mitaka has clarified something for them. He’s been remarkably helpful in the past. Hux thinks that he could have been a great spy if the Order gave him that mission rather than administrative duties, given what Hux guesses about Mitaka’s experience aboard his own Star Destroyer. Hux knows it wasn’t _Defiance_ ; if it was, their Slangs would have been similar. Yet when Hux had spoken with Mitaka after the red comm’s revelations, before he and Ren left in the _Upsilon_ , Mitaka’s Slang had been so _different_ from Hux’s own. Similar enough that Hux could understand him, bar a couple phrases here or there, but still different. 

 

Hux opens his comm and presses its side button. Immediately, a new message plays, one that makes Hux’s eyes widen. His other hand continues to trace Ren’s impossibly soft face. 

 

Of course they wouldn’t know that. The admirals never would have thought that Kylo Ren, apprentice to the Supreme Leader and forced co-commander of the _Finalizer_ , would leave with Hux. Neither the admirals nor anyone else aboard the _Finalizer_ truly knew the extend of Hux and Ren’s relationship. Hux knew that his crew suspected, of course, but never to anything close to a relationship. Mostly just a good way to relieve tension, and though it started like that the second time Hux and Ren met, it didn’t take long for their relationship to evolve into something deeper. But that was always behind closed doors, never to be seen by the crew.

 

It seems as though Hux and Ren’s secrecy has paid off. In forcing Hux to flee, it gave Ren the incentive to listen to the creature’s voice in his head and to leave too. Snoke may have abandoned him because of Starkiller, but judging by the creature’s words, Ren was never meant to leave. He was meant to be broken by his abandonment, but thanks to the creature and Ren’s own stubborn personality, he moved on to the next problem and the next voice in his crowded head. Hux traces his hand down Ren’s neck and finds a strong, steady pulse to match his even breathing. He keeps his fingers on Ren’s pulse just to make sure it doesn’t stop beating.

Mitaka said that Thannison was the one to reveal this information to the admirals. How he had seen Ren emerge from the _Upsilon’s_ wings with his hand aloft, how he had convinced Thannison to disengage the hangar shields and let them depart. Hux can’t say how the hell Mitaka got this information, but what he’s saying happened. Thannison did stop them in the hangar, and though Hux can’t say for certain, as he never interacted with Thannison beyond the necessities, it’s likely that Thannison would be the one to tell the admirals what he saw. Ren may have manipulated his mind with the Force, but it had taken him two tries and the effect must wear off after some time. Hux would need to ask Ren about the finicky nature of the Force. 

 

Still, Hux isn’t angry with Thannison. His position requires him to defer to higher command, and Hux gave him no orders to stay silent. Ren has no jurisdiction over his crew either. No, Hux isn’t angry at all. The message even makes him smile. 

 

Snoke must be _horrifyingly_ angry with the admirals right now. Not only did they lose their scapegoat to a relationship Hux hadn’t thought about in years, but Snoke lost one of his sources of power in this universe. He must be surviving off of someone, though Hux can’t think of who his teeth are in now if they’re out of Ren now.  
Maybe Snoke is existing off his reserves now, off the Force users he consumed long ago, if what the creature said is true. Hux doesn’t know. This would be a perfect time for Ren to wake up, but he sleeps on, unaffected by the absolute chaos that has become his and Hux’s lives. 

 

Mitaka speaks for a long time in the rambling way he does. It’s made worse by Slang; it wasn’t conceived as a particularly _brief_ language and is far too poetic to exist in the Order. Yet it’s the end of Mitaka’s message that catches Hux by surprise, even more so beyond what Mitaka has revealed about the admirals. 

 

As Mitaka is summarizing what he just said, as if Hux could have forgotten a detail in the minute that’s passed since Mitaka first said it, Hux hears a door hiss open in the distance. The sound of it is barely recognizable and so is the indistinct voice Hux can hear in the background. 

 

No, what Hux hears is a sound he has never heard before. Directly into the comm, Mitaka makes this strange sort of hissing growl, like he’s imitating some alien sound, before the comm message cuts off. Before it can repeat, Hux takes his finger off the button. 

 

Imperial Slang was cobbled together from multiple alien languages. Like any human language, aliens have their sounds for happiness, irritation, contentment, love and all the other emotions sentient beings feel. Therefore, Slang incorporates those sounds. It’s part of the reason why Slang differs so much between individual Star Destroyers; a group of Hux’s generation may have taken the hiss from a Kamarian to mean aggression while another group could have heard it and thought it meant humor. Those small differences weren’t enough to completely divide the language, but it was confusing and often dangerous to mix two starving groups together when there was only enough food for one. 

 

Hux has never heard this specific sound before. If it was only the growl, he’d take it to be aggression, like most other Imperials would say. But with the accompanying hiss, Hux can’t say. Whatever it is, it’s some bastardization of human and alien languages. Mitaka obviously can’t make the completely correct sounds, and when Hux tries to imitate him, he can’t make the sound at all. Whatever happened aboard the _Finalizer_ is a mystery, as Mitaka cut off the message before Hux had the chance to figure out who just came into the room. He has to hope that Mitaka wormed his way out of the situation somehow. 

 

Now that Hux has all the information, he can plan what he’s going to do next. It would be much more helpful if Ren were awake, due to his expertise with the Force and the fact that he and Ren have always been a good team when they cooperate with each other’s differing ideas. 

 

Hux reflects on the choices he has or lack thereof. His hand has moved up from Ren’s neck back into his hair, which is somehow silky and not clogged with grease. 

He and Ren could always flee into the Unknown Regions, disappear like so many thieves and smugglers and vermin do, but that’s not possible. Hux can’t say for certain, but he thinks that once a sentient being from the other side of the universe appears in front of you and tells you to do something, it’s a sign to listen and do what you’re commanded.

 

So. Can’t run away. 

 

Obviously Hux and Ren can’t go back to the _Finalizer_ or even the Order itself. The admirals must be frothing to get Hux’s neck between their teeth. Hux won’t give them that opportunity. They’ll have to stay away, but if Mitaka is still willing to communicate, Hux will have to contact him somehow to update him on what’s happening. He’ll will have to figure out how to contact Mitaka without alerting the galaxy to his exact whereabouts; it’s a necessary evil of Order devices to be detectable anywhere, yet dangerously inconvenient now. Still, Mitaka might be the last person Hux can talk to in the Order who’s irrelevant enough to be important. 

That leaves the third option, the one that makes Hux sick to his stomach. Going to the two people who were responsible for his base’s destruction and Ren’s brush with death. Hux runs a hand through Ren’s hair, lightly tracing over his facial scar with his two fingers as he does so. Ren doesn’t stir from the attentions. 

 

The creature had said that Ren needed them. It had also said that Hux was relevant too, that their lives were similar in ways Hux hadn’t yet realized. Hux can’t think of any reason how he could be similar to those two, considering he has never been a stormtrooper nor stolen from a Star Destroyer like the way he saw her do in the creature’s vision. No, they’re not similar at all. 

 

But Ren hasn’t woken up, even after they left the star system. Perhaps they could help Ren wake up from whatever Force trance he is in right now. Then, once Ren wakes up, he and Hux can leave and fix whatever mess the universe has become because of Snoke’s interference. Hux could give them something of worth, something the Resistance might want. Battle plans, engineering schematics to the Resurgent-class Star Destroyers. A mutually beneficial trade, once completed never mentioned again. 

 

The creature was wrong. Hux and Ren can survive on their own together, fulfil its commands to fix the universe on their own. They have the skills needed to navigate the galaxy’s spaceports, Ren from his travels as a younger man and Hux from his experiences as a child. Ren has the Force and Hux his engineering; they could earn credits for food and other necessities or just steal them. Hux was never a good thief, not like other Imperials were, but he thinks Ren might be better. Given his smuggler of a father, Ren has to have some skills in that department. 

 

If only Ren would just wake up. Then Hux would never have to look at the people who completely destroyed his life and career and ask them for help. 

 

But there’s one problem. Hux has no fucking clue how to find them. 

 

They could be anywhere. The creature had mentioned a planet with many islands, but there are thousands of planets with millions of islands to consider. What Hux needs is someone who knows these two fucks, someone who’s part of the Resistance and knows their movements or lack thereof. Someone high up in Resistance command. 

 

The realization hits Hux like a ship’s afterburner screeching through the atmosphere. 

 

“Jois Esla, fucking _dumbass_ ,” Hux hisses at himself before pushing himself off the floor, holding onto his coat as he does so, and running to the cockpit. The pain in his legs is forgotten as he throws himself into the seat and pulls the ship out of hyperdrive, before inputting those new coordinates from the ship’s navigational computer. Hux slams the hyperdrive throttles down again. After seeing the star streaks reappear in front of him in the ship’s viewport, Hux runs out of the cockpit, already planning what he will say and how he will convince a commander in the Resistance navy to tell him where a scavenger and stormtrooper have flown to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're confused as to where Hux is going: reread chapter 6 ;) 
> 
> (I am very excited to write this conversation!!) 
> 
> I don't know when the next update will be, but I'll keep y'all posted on ye olde blog of mind :D 
> 
> Until then, enjoy the science and the new plot! I can't wait to write more!

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 is done! Yay! 
> 
> So I'm planning to publish weekly, with my publishing day probably being on Sunday, but if you want a more detailed schedule of my publishing, check out my blog here [@lady-starkiller](http://lady-starkiller.tumblr.com) for updates and funny little snippets about Ryoida :D 
> 
> <3 see you all next week! <3


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